# Analysis of TAS Processing Times

EPA analyzed whether the presence of nonmember

- owned fee lands on a tribal reservation affected the time for the tribe and EPA to develop and review an application for the tribe to be found eligible to be treated in a similar manner as a state (TAS) to administer a water quality standards program and a section 401 water quality certification program pursuant to the Clean Water Act. The analysis consisted of four steps:

1. EPA first compiled information on tribal TAS applic ations that were approved by EPA on or after March 1998. 1 

### TAS reviews after that date were subject to specific internal EPA procedures designed to enable sound TAS decisions that can be defended successfully. See the “Cannon

Perciasepe memorandum” elsewher e in the docket for this propos ed interpretive rule. 2 

### A total of 29 applications met these criteria. 2. For each tribe, EPA calculated the processing time, in years, between the date the tribe submitted a TAS application to EPA for review and the date that EPA approved the a pplication. T his time typically includes tribal work to refine the application and provide any additional materials needed for EPA ’ s review, and EPA ’ s work to review t he application according to 40 CFR 131.8 and to prepare decision documents. 3. EPA used readily available information to determine which of the 29 tribal reservations included nonmember

- owned fee lands. A total of 14 tribes had such lands, 12 tribes did not. Such i nformation was not readily available for the remaining 3 tribes. 4. EPA found that the mean processing time was 1.6 years longer for tribes with nonmember

owned fee lands than for tribes without such lands on their reservations. 5. EPA performed a one

- tailed t

- test and found that the difference in mean s is unlikely to have occurred by chance (P < . 0 7 )

. The results of the analysis are shown on the next page.

Thus, EPA ’s information on tribes that it has found eligible to administer WQS and section 401 certifications indicates that tribal applications for reservations with nonmembe r fee lands, which require an analysis of tribal inherent authority under Montana , took 1. 6 years longer to be approved, on average, than applications for reservations without such lands.

1 

### Such information is available from EPA’s website, http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguidance/standards/wqslibrary/approvtable.cfm

2 

### Adoption of the Recommendations from the EPA Workgroup on Tribal Eligibility Determinations , memorandum from Robert Perciasepe, Assistant Administrator for the National Indian Program, and Jonathan Z. Cannon, General Counsel, EPA, March 19, 1998.Tribe Fee Lands? Elapsed

Yrs with fee lands Elapsed

Yrs w/o fee lands Elapsed

Yrs w/o fee land info A Yes 1.84 B Yes 1.96 C Yes 2.34 D Yes 2.49 E Yes 2.49 F Yes 2.62 G Yes 3.32 H Yes 3.69 I Yes 4.28 J Yes 6.16 K Yes 6.38 L Yes 7.57 M Yes 7.84 N Yes 11.99 O No 0.55 P No 0.61 Q No 0.72 R No 1.40 S No 1.48 T No 2.50 U No 2.70 V No 4.39 W No 4.53 X No 5.24 Y No 5.84 Z No 6.68 AA No report 1.26 BB No report 1.53 CC No report 4.61

MEAN YEARS TO COMPLETION 4.64 3.05 2.47

n 29 14 12 3 % increase for tribes w/fee lands Years increase for tribes w/fee lands

t-Test: Two-Sample Assuming Equal Variances Elapsed Yrs with fee lands Elapsed

Yrs w/o fee lands Mean 4.64 3.05 Variance 8.82 4.82 Observations 14.00 12.00 Pooled Variance 6.98 Hypothesized Mean Difference 0.00 df 24.00 t Stat -1.53 P(T<=t) one-tail 0.07 t Critical one-tail 1.71 P(T<=t) two-tail 0.14 t Critical two-tail 2.06

0.52% longer 1.59 years longer